Of the many cherry blossoms viewing spots in Taiwan, Alishan is arguably the most famous.
Every March to early April, pink and white cherry blossoms (櫻花 or ying hua in Mandarin, sakura in Japanese) fill the national forest recreation area. It’s one of the dreamiest spectacles I’ve ever witnessed, reminding me why Alishan is my favorite place in Taiwan.
But visiting Alishan at this time is even more complicated than usual, from the difficult-to-book Alishan Forest Railway and buses to flower viewing crowds, traffic restrictions, and sold-out hotels. It is the busiest time of the year to visit this popular mountain resort.
In this article, I’ll help you tackle these challenges, share the best times to go, and then guide you along a walking tour of the best cherry blossom spots in Alishan.
History of Cherry Blossoms in Alishan
During the Japanese colonial occupation of Taiwan (1895-1945), the Japanese first developed Alishan as a logging area. They built the Alishan Forest Railway to move timber down the mountain.
But very early on, Alishan was also shaped as a Japanese-style mountain resort, where Japanese visitors could be reminded of home. Japanese Yoshino cherry blossoms were first planted in Alishan in 1903 to help evoke this feeling.
In the book Taiwan Travelogue (see my list of best books about Taiwan), a fiction set in 1938, the Japanese narrator wishes to see the cherry blossoms in Alishan, already considered a must-do in Taiwan at the time.
Later on, as Alishan’s popularity continued to grow, other types of cherry blossoms, which bloom earlier or later than Yoshino ones, were also introduced to extend the cherry blooming season there.
For more general information about planning your trip, see my Alishan guide and recommended Alishan itinerary.
Types of Cherry Blossoms in Alishan
Of the dozen or so main cherry blossoms types found in Taiwan, around half a dozen can be seen in Alishan region.
Below I’ve made a table of the different types of cherry blossoms in Alishan, roughly in order of when they appear.
Please note that Yoshino cherry blossoms are the classic, most abundant, and I would say most beautiful variety associated with Alishan.
Since I visited for the peak blooming of the Yoshinos, most of the cherry blossom photos in my article are Yoshino cherry blossoms.
| Cherry Blossom Type | Traits | Dates and Location |
| Kawazu (河津櫻) | Large, vivid pink petals, very early blooming | Mid-Jan to late-Feb, only a few spots like here in Meishan (car needed) and here near Shizhuo |
| Showa (昭和櫻) | Japanese ornamental cultivar developed in Showa era, deep to bright pink, bushy | Mid-Feb to mid-Mar, only on Alishan Sakura trail and other spots in Shizhuo area |
| Taiwan / Mountain / Bell-Flowered (山櫻花 / 緋寒櫻) | Indigenous variety, dark pink, with downward hanging bell shape | Mid-Feb to mid-Mar, Alishan park |
| Yoshino (吉野櫻) | Very light, pinkish white, cloud-like, horizontal branches with canopy, classic and most abundant variety in Alishan | Early Mar to early April, Alishan park (peak: mid to late Mar) |
| Oshima (大島櫻) | White, larger, with green leaves among flowers, more fragrant, less abundant | Late Mar to mid-April, Alishan park |
| Yaezakura / Double Flowered (八重櫻 /重瓣櫻) | Darker pink, multiple layers of petals, resemble pom poms, less abundant | Late Mar to mid-April, Alishan park |
In Alishan, you can also see plum blossoms, which are sometimes confused with cherry blossoms, from late December to early February
Best Time to Visit Alishan for Cherry Blossoms
In my opinion, the absolute best time to visit Alishan for cherry blossom viewing is the last two weeks of March.
During this time, you will almost certainly catch the peak of the Yoshino cherry blossoms, which are the prettiest and most abundant variety in the park.
For reference, I shot most of the photos in this article on March 24 and 25.
If you come very early (late January to late February), you can catch the Kawazu cherry blossoms, easiest at Mihu Trail Kawazu Cherry Blossom Park here (a 45-minute walk from Shizhuo, buses from Chiayi to Alishan also pass it).
If you come in the first two weeks of March, then you can catch the beautiful display of Showa cherry blossoms on Shizhuo’s Alishan Sakura trail.
In Alishan park, you can expect to see more of the darker Taiwan cherry blossoms at this time, but the Yoshino cherries will only be just starting to bloom.
In your come later, say in the first two weeks of April, the Yoshino cherry blossoms may be still around, but they will be past their peak, with some petals falling off.
But you will be able to see some of the later Oshima and Yaezakura varieties. But try to avoid the four-day April long weekend, when masses of locals visit.
Getting to Alishan During Cherry Blossom Season
Transportation to Alishan is already complicated at normal times. I cover all the main options in more detail in my guide to getting to Alishan.
Tours or Driving
There are many Alishan day tours on Klook (try here, here, here, or here). Book early, as they are likely to fill up.
Renting a car or getting a private driver are good options which avoid all the hassles of public transportation.
However, due to high traffic during cherry blossom, there are traffic controls from 6 to 11 AM on Saturdays and Sundays from the first weekend of March to the April long weekend (April 3-6 in 2026).
During those times, you’ll have to park your car on 66 KM on Highway 18 from Chiayi to Alishan and take a shuttle the rest of the way up. I recommend trying to avoid driving up during those times if you can.
Here’s a website about the traffic controls last year – I’ll update it if they make a new one this year.
Alishan Forest Railway
The 5-hour Alishan Forest Railway ride from Chiayi to Alishan (with one hour stop on Fenqihu on the way up only) is the classic (albeit slowest) way to reach the park.
If you’d like to get tickets from Chiayi to Alishan, which can be very difficult, I strongly recommend you take advantage of the small quota of tickets which are released early (60 days in advance) and only available to tourists.
If you miss those, you’ll have to try the official site when they are released two weeks in advance, which will be almost impossible as they sell out instantly. Many travelers also manage to score tickets just 1-2 days before, or even on the day of travel.
Click my link above for all the information.
By Bus
Lastly, for the 2.5 hour bus ride from Chiayi to Alishan, you can expect the buses to be totally full or sold out throughout the cherry blossom season. See the bus times, how to book it online, and how to buy bus tickets at FamilyMart.
If you’re coming from Sun Moon Lake, here’s how to book the bus from Sun Moon Lake to Alishan.
Alishan Hotels in Cherry Blossom Season
Alishan’s hotels are limited and often sell out, even during quieter seasons.
You’ll want to book early, but this is complicated by the fact that many hotels there don’t release their rooms until 2-3 months in advance.
A few hotels there, including my most recommended Dafong Hotel (see on Booking / Agoda), and Alishan Hotel (see on Booking / Agoda), the most expensive one, release their rooms as early as six months in advance.
For other hotels in the park, which are mostly on the same street as Dafong Hotel in the tourist village, start trying around 3-4 months in advance, and if you don’t find any, just keep checking back again and again until you find something.
If you still don’t succeed, or you find that hotels in the park are just too expensive, then expand your search to hotels in Shizhuo (45 minute bus ride before the park), where they are more reasonable priced, or hotels in Chiayi city, which has lots of cheap options, then just do a day trip to Alishan.
Where to See Cherry Blossoms in Alishan
Now I will cover the specific spots, some obvious and some more secret, to see cherry blossoms in Alishan region.
On the way to Alishan
If you drive or take a bus to Alishan during cherry blossom season, you will most likely see cherry blossoms in several spots along the highway as you go, but these tend to bloom earlier than those in Alishan.
Depending on your trip timing, there are a few spots you may want to stop specifically to see them or to spend the night.
If you plan to spend a night in Xiding for doing Eryanping and Tea & Mist trail, you can see some cherry blossoms here along the highway near the entrance to Tea & Mist Trail. They typically bloom from around late February to mid-March.
In Shizhuo area, early visitors can catch the kawazu cherry blossoms at Mihu Trail Kawazu Cherry Blossoms Park here from late January to late February. It’s a 45-minute walk from Shizhuo or you can hop on any 7322 bus (Chiayi Station to Alishan) and get off here.
Closer to Shizhuo, the gorgeous Alishan Sakura Trail (here, read about it) is lined with Showa and Taiwan cherry blossoms from around mid-February to mid-March. The combination of tea bushes and cherry blossoms is especially stunning.
Finally, in my table of cherry blossom types, I mentioned there’s one spot here in Meishan district which has Kawazu cherry blossoms very early on, from mid-January to late-February. This is just one single but very beautiful tree next to a tea pavilion. It is considered the first cherry blossom tree to bloom every year in the entire Alishan region. It’s about 15 minutes’ drive north of Fenqihu, but no buses go there.
If you happen to be driving from Sun Moon Lake to Alishan, then you can see gorgeous cherry blossoms here at Caopingtou from early February to mid-March.
Cherry Blossom Walking Tour Inside Alishan
You can’t really miss the cherry blossoms inside Alishan park, especially if you arrive at the peak of Yoshino cherry season. You’ll see them everywhere from the moment you arrive.
However, the park is large and some of the best spots are easy to miss if you don’t go the right way. My below walking tour will hit all of them!
Alishan Entrance Gate
You will likely see some cherry blossoms right before you even pass through Alishan National Forest Recreation Area’s main entrance gate.
If you arrive by bus, you will walk from Alishan Bus Station through the entrance gate, where you’ll pay the park entrance fee (TWD 300, or 150 if you show your bus ticket). If you arrive by car, you’ll drive through the gate and pay (TWD 300 per person, plus 100 for parking).
There are some different types of cherry blossom trees right next to the entrance gate, as you can see in my above photo.
I saw some Yoshino and Taiwan cherry blossoms there when I visited in late March, plus there are supposedly some late-blooming Puxian Elephant Cherries (普賢象櫻, a type of Yaezakura, the last variety in my table) here in early April.
Alishan Train Station
When I arrived in Alishan by train, I was totally mesmerized when I stepped outside. The train station is surrounded by cherry blossom trees.
From the platform in front of the station, I was looking down on several Yoshino trees, with Alishan tourist village below them and mountain views beyond.
From lower down, I could look through the cherry blossoms, which were framing views of Mount Daito (大塔山 or Datashan), the highest mountain in Alishan.
These were my first cherry blossoms in Alishan, so I was almost moved to tears by their beauty and spent a long time photographing them from every possible angle.
I was blessed to enjoy them on a day with a totally clear blue sky, which provides a perfect contrast to their pinkish-white color, making them look like floating clouds in the sky.
At the side of the train station, I found another viewing platform and more Yoshino cherry blossoms, plus some darker pink Taiwan cherry blossoms, which were well past their prime.
While I’m not including an entry for it, you will see more cherry blossoms along the loop road around the tourist village, which leads to the street of hotels at the bottom/back side.
Walking From Alishan Station to Zhaoping
While many tourists take the train from Alishan Station to Zhaoping (Chaoping) Station (6-minute ride), you can also walk from Alishan Station to Chaoping area (about 20 minutes), with lots of cherry blossoms along the way.
Here are some beautiful cherry blossoms I saw along the way, which I’m pretty sure are all Yoshino cherry trees.
At one point, I turned right, crossing the road and following the signs to Zhaoping Park (note, we will come back to this spot later and go the other way, towards Alishan Hotel and Shouzhen Temple).
Zhaoping Park and Skywalk
Zhaoping Park (沼平公園, here) is a large park with many plum blossoms (December to January) and different types of cherry blossoms (late February to early April), including Taiwan, Yoshino, Oshima, and Yaezakura.
I followed the trail into the park, where not too many flowers were blooming when I visited (I was a little late for Taiwan cherries but early for others), as you can see in the photo below.
Then I reached Alishan Police Lodge (see next two entries, note radio tower in above photo) at the side of the park. After exploring those, I continued deeper into the park towards Zhaoping Station.
At the back of the park, I found Zhaoping Skywalk (天空步道), an elevated boardwalk with forest views and several blooming Yoshino cherry blossom trees.
Alishan Police Lodge
Shortly after entering Zhaoping Park, the trail naturally led me past Alishan Police Lodge (阿里山警光山莊, here) on the right side of the park.
I found the yard in front of the police lodge totally filled with gorgeous Yoshino cherry trees.
There’s a tall radio telecommunications tower in front of the police lodge, which was almost totally obscured by the cherry blossoms when I looked up.
Alishan trains going from Alishan to Chaoping (only going there, not coming back) pass by right here in front of the police lodge and its cherry blossoms roughly every 30 minutes.
If you want to see one going by, here are their exact departure times from Alishan Station. Add 5 minutes to the departure time. I was lucky enough to just catch one!
As you can see from my photo, it’s a little tough to get a great photo of the train going by with some cherry blossoms in the shot (the next entry is much better!)
In my photo above, that’s actually the back of the train, as it heads towards Chaoping. And I’ve photoshopped out a few tourists who were standing on the steps watching it go by.
You can stand on either side of the tracks to watch it go by – a conductor will close the gate when the train is coming.
Secret Spot with Alishan Train Going By
Besides the spot I mentioned in front of Alishan Police Lodge, there’s actually a better spot tucked away at the side of the lodge where you can capture one of most iconic shots of an Alishan train driving past a cluster of cherry blossoms.
To find it, walk past the radio tower to find a path in the forest on the east side of the police lodge. This will take you to a lookout spot of the train tracks roughly at this pin.
For this one, you’ll be catching a train going from Chaoping Station back to Alishan Station – check the times here and add one minute. If you time it right, the train will be driving towards you.
Local photographers know about this spot, so I was among a small crowd there, with limited viewing spaces along the fence. Get there at least five minutes early to claim your spot!
From here, most visitors normally walk past Chaoping Station (沼平車站, here), which has a few cherry trees, and Gou Hotel (here), which has a few more, to reach Sister Pond Trail, the most popular tourist trail at Alishan.
However, since cherry blossoms are our main focus on this tour, I’m going to recommend that you skip Sister Pond Trail for now, which has no cherry blossoms, in favor of a route which has some of the best cherry blossoms spots in Alishan (see next two entries).
And don’t worry about missing Sister Pond Trail. We’ll be doing an even better one below!
If you really want to do Sister Pond trail, consider to save it for after sunset the next day.
Alishan Hotel
From Zhaoping Park, I returned to where I first entered Zhaoping park and followed the signs to Alishan Hotel and Shouzhen Temple. I was walking along a paved vehicle road, with wooden pedestrian boardwalks on the side, downhill towards them.
Alishan Hotel is the most famous and expensive hotel in the park. It consists of two buildings: the original Japanese-era wooden (hinoki or Taiwanese cypress) hotel building dating to 1913, and the larger, newer building further down the road.
Right in front of the older hotel building stands a beautiful 100+ year-old Somei-Yoshino (染井吉野櫻) cherry tree, which is labeled here on GoogleMaps.
King Cherry Tree
As you continue walking downhill past Alishan Hotel, on the opposite (left) side of the road, you’ll come across a collection of gorgeous cherry blossom trees directly opposite the Forestry Bureau Work Station.
This was quite possibly the most beautiful collection of cherry blossoms I saw in all of Alishan park, due to their size, natural surroundings, and the fact that I could see the peak of Mount Daito rising behind them.
One tree there, called King Cherry (櫻王, here) is named so because it is one of the largest, and arguably most iconic cherry blossom tree in Alishan.
Supposedly transplanted here in 1918, the beautiful tree is now well over 100 years old.
Besides Yoshino cherry blossoms, there are also some Oshima and Yaezakura cherry blossoms here, so this would still be a good viewing spot in early April.
Shouzhen Temple
At the bottom, the road finally reaches Shouzhen Temple. If you had walked the Sister Pond Trail from Zhaoping Park, you would also end up here.
Shouzhen Temple is a beautiful temple backed by the forest. In front of it, there are two rows of kiosks selling snacks, local products like Alishan tea and wasabi, and souvenirs.
There are a few cherry blossoms here, too, and if you position yourself in the just the right spot behind them, you can get a photo of the cherry blossoms with the temple in the background.
Sunset Viewing Spot with Cherry Blossoms
From Shouzhen Temple, go to the spot where the two rows of kiosks meet, forming a corner. There, you will find an exit leading to a trail down into the forest, which is Giant Tree Trail.
Giant Tree Trail is similar to Sister Pond Trail, but (in my opinion) better and less touristy.
At the bottom of the steps, you’ll have to decide whether to go left (green line in above map) or right (red line) around this loop trail. You can go either way, since our sunset cherry blossom spot is on the opposite side of the loop, but I recommend going right.
If you go right, you’ll soon pass Alishan Tree No. 28 (2300 years old and largest in Alishan!) then you’ll reach Shenmu (Sacred Tree) Station, where trains go back to Alishan Station (last departure 16:10).
Follow the path past the station to a set of stairs at the far end. That trail will eventually lead to Ciyun Temple (阿里山慈雲寺, here), where you’ll find a sunset viewing platform at the base of a set of stairs leading to a shrine and traditional cemetery.
A little further along, around here, you’ll find another similar sunset viewing platform (above and below photos), and this is the one that has some cherry blossoms.
After enjoying the sunset, complete the loop trail, which will connect to the vehicle road from Shouzhen Temple back to Alishan tourist village (about 20 minutes on foot).
Bonus Spot: Mianyue Line and Tashan Trail
Mianyue Line is a very special full-day hike in Alishan which follows an earthquake-damaged railway line through numerous tunnels and across many bridges.
Another hike, Tashan Trail, follows the same route at first but then splits off from Mianyue Line. Both of the start from the middle of Sister Pond Trail.
Neither of these trails is especially known for cherry blossoms, but I did see some beautiful Taiwan cherry blossoms (above and below photos) while walking along the start of both trails.
Well, that completes our Alishan cherry blossom viewing tour. I hope you’ve found the information here useful and have as good of a sakura viewing experience as I did!